Just why the fuck should someone else you'll never meet own your fucking house in the first place?

[originalpckelly]

The house was built somehow, you got it somehow. The economy has the ability in it to allocate a house, right? Perhaps we can get a person a house without starting another undemocratic system.

[TwilightGardener]

1. You got it by paying money. That is the way it is, unless the House Fairy comes into being.

[originalpckelly]

2. Money is just paper.

Or worse: it's just as valuable as the electronic values I'm typing now.

[TwilightGardener]

7. Well, I see where we're going with this. I'll just say, when I bought my house, I put down

thousands of my own dollars and borrowed the rest, because they didn't want my seashell collection or a supply of my delicious chicken piccata and apple pies.

[jtuck004]

12. I might have opted for the chicken piccata and apple pies.

Probably would have been fired, but I wouldn't have to worry about good food for awhile ;)


Fools...

[TwilightGardener]

15. LOL--I actually use Giada DeLaurentiis's recipe for the piccata, but cut down on the

lemon juice a little--a bit too lemony.

[jtuck004]

59. I'll have to go look for that.

Wife brought home a sweetmeat squash yesterday from work. I'll roast it and make a pumpking-like pie. Usually better than better than pumpkin - we will see in a day or two. :)

Her work provides a table for people to bring extra stuff from their garden. They lay it out so others can have it. She took my Italian garlic this summer, now carrots.

[TwilightGardener]

60. Mmm, roasted squash. Every season has its treats.

[originalpckelly]

16. Yes, but why should some other dickhead have the power to create money...

then make you pay him money every month, with interest?

Why should a small group of people control that power, and not the rest of us?

[TwilightGardener]

38. They don't "create" money, they have other customers who pay loan interest

and put money in checking and savings, and they have investments. Any power that they have is a result of the contract that I freely and knowingly signed with them--and it's limited to that contract.

[originalpckelly]

44. You obviously have no idea how banking works.

Get back to us when you studied even the most basic ideas behind fractional reserve banking.

I guess I have to ask: where did the money their customers deposit come from? What is a multiplier? What is the multiplier effect?

[TwilightGardener]

49. Well, I guess you've got me there. I don't understand all the intricacies of banking,

currency, the Federal Reserve or the Treasury, for sure.

[originalpckelly]

51. You shouldn't have to...

that's what pisses me off. The problem is that so many people have absolutely no clue, not even anything approaching a clue, beyond what they see in dumb ass movies like It's a Wonderful Life.

[MADem]

14. Well, if it is "just" paper, it should be easy to come by, shouldn't it? nt

[originalpckelly]

20. You're absolutely right...

but why isn't it?

A small group of people have control over the creation of new money, and they have essentially enslaved the entire nation. That's why.

[dmallind]

63. Money is also the standard medium for labor exchange

My house - one well below the norm for my income level - still cost me about 3000 hours of work. The norm is something like 6000 hours. I have no idea how many hours of other people's labor went into making the materials for the house and then actually building it, let alone the labor used up in making all the tools and transportation it took, but it's unlikely to be below the thousands. how do they get paid if I don't pay for my house? How do I pay for it if nobody will lend me the money upfront. I could probably buy a very much worse house with my savings, but most people couldn't. How are they supposed to get houses?

[Nye Bevan]

3. Makes sense (nt)

[Courtesy Flush]

11. How's that?

People can't afford to pay cash for houses. We need motgages, and mortgage companies need regulating.

[originalpckelly]

18. But someone else can, right?

After all, where did the money come from to pay for your loan?

[Courtesy Flush]

23. Seriously?

You think there's something sinister about the idea of mortgages? The concept used to work pretty well before deregulation.

[originalpckelly]

27. No it hasn't. You have a warped perspective on the history of the world.

Your entire reality and all the things you have experienced give you only the idea that this is an acceptable practice. It isn't.

Mortgages are not normal, for most of human history you didn't have to pay some worthless stain on the world any of your money. You made your own house.

This is just a method, not the only method.

Do you really think we cannot come up with anything better than a system that indents people for most of their existence on this earth?

[dmallind]

64. And people like me who have no idea how and no ability to build?

People lived MUCH shittier lives before the invention of money for an obvious reason. Not everybody can do everything, and not everybody can do the same things equally well. I don't want to go back to subsistence farming and barter. I suspect I am in the majority.

[Yo_Mama]

66. Housing standards have come up, buddy.

I can in fact make myself a tipi or an adobe hut, but I prefer to live in one built by highly skilled carpenters and plumbers and electricians and masons in cooperation. MUCH less drafty. Oddly enough, those skilled people want to get something useful back for their efforts. Since I make a living doing somewhat arcane stuff and I'm just not very cute, I am honestly constrained to admit that I'd be huddling in a poorly built, poorly lit shack if it weren't for the wonderful thing called "money". On my own, I don't generate anything of value that would get the carpenter or the electrician or the plumber or the mason to work for me.

The reason why we are "enslaved" to money is that it is a highly efficient exchange medium that allows people like me to live better than I could if I had to do everything myself. I also have more leisure than my grandparents. I have access to skilled surgeons and dentists if I get appendicitis or when I got my impacted wisdom teeth out. I have access to drugs than no one even dreamed about when I was a kid, and I owe my life to them. Highly skilled chemists and researchers did that for me. Oddly enough, they want a living in return....

I think you have got it backwards. You think the problem is money and lending - I think the reason societies are often poorer than they should be is because their systems of money and lending don't work well.

Let's face it - when you are on the top in the feudal system, you have no incentive to make the peasants lives better. In our society, those with wealth or who want to acquire wealth generally have to find a way to make other people buy their stuff or their services, and other people are FREE not to do so.

If you are born a serf in a traditional society, you are not going to get land or a loan - the guy with the warriors owns all that, and he has no incentive to share the castle.

[MrDiaz]

56. houses are not

built for free, This "paper" we call money, is also used to build these houses, because you need this "paper" to buy wood, nails, shingles, windows, tile, carpet, doors, sheetrock, paint, etc. Oh yeah and lets not forget about the "paper" that pays the salaries of those who labor to build these homes. You sound as if someone else should spend all this "paper" on a house and then give it away for free. And if this is so I then ask why in the world would someone build a house using all this "paper" and not get any "paper" in return?

[HappyMe]

4. What?

[Wait Wut]

47. +1

Took the word right outta my mouth.

[dkf]

5. How are you going to get everyone to give you all the stuff you need to build a house?

[originalpckelly]

8. Let a computer give someone a loan...

and then make them destroy the money they spent on the house every month.

Money is just a measure of value in another thing, it itself is worthless.

[Recovered Repug]

19. So where does the money for the loan come from? nt

[piratefish08]

6. i like turtles

[BeyondGeography]

9. What the fuck are you talking about?

[county worker]

10. I don't understand what you are saying.

Are you saying some construction workers and some architects and a construction company and the original owner of the land and others should build a house for nothing and give it to you?

There was a TV show like that. Extreme Makeover I think. They built a house and barn for a family near where I use to live and filled the barn with alfalfa. If course the father of the family lost his life tragically and the family could not harvest their crop and pay the medical bills etc.

[originalpckelly]

17. Where does the money to build the house come from?

A loan, eventually, right?

Where do loans come from?

[county worker]

21. People have to trade their labor or something for the money. It did not grow on a tree.

I ask you again. What do you mean? Do you mean you should be able to have a house for no effort on your part?

[originalpckelly]

24. Do the people who create money have to trade their labor for it?

Is it a real productive job to do this? To control other human beings in such a sick way?

[county worker]

26. Why don't you answer my question instead of asking me questions?

Do you think you should have a house for nothing given on your part?

[originalpckelly]

29. I think that's actually quite obvious. No.

But you keep bringing up a red herring. I hear they are in season this time in bullshitsville.

[county worker]

28. Money is a means of exchange and a holder of value.

We could use stones with holes in them but you would still have to go find the stones and put the holes in them.

[originalpckelly]

31. And should the people who create new stones with holes in them...

be able to enslave you?

[Yo_Mama]

67. Yes, it is a highly productive job if done right

Nor are you "controlling" another human being by doing so. No one is marched in at gunpoint to get a mortgage to buy a house. It's a free decision. No one forces anyone to borrow money.

The person who makes lending decisions looks at the individual or business applying for a loan and tries to figure out if that person or entity can pay the money back based on their ability to produce goods for exchange for money in the future. It's a skilled job, and analytical job, and if it's done well it diffuses resources through the economy where they can best be used.

Because we have the ability to go get loans, we have a lot of social mobility. Those who are good at something can get money advanced to allow them to do it, or to buy things.

The reason why people buy houses with borrowed money is either to speculate on the appreciation in the house or to live in it. If you are going to live in it, then you make the decision whether it is worth while to wait and save the money to buy it (meanwhile presumably paying rent to someone who already has housing) or to borrow the money and pay it back over time.

[sammytko]

22. no always. My house was built in 1929 - paid off years ago

because the original owner probably didn't take out a loan. His grandson inherited and eventually sold it to me. The loan was just between the grandson and me. I work, the people I work for give me money and I give some of that money to the grandson every month. In 21 months the house will be mine free and clear.

[Courtesy Flush]

25. Stop doing that

Stop asking questions and pretending that you're making statements. Just say what the hell you're talking about.

[originalpckelly]

32. I'm trying to get people to think.

It's as if no one is capable of thinking for themselves, they just parrot lines without standing back to think about the situation.

[MineralMan]

45. I suggest that you start by getting yourself to think, then.

I don't see a lot of evidence of it in your posts. Reread your original post in this thread. What thought went into it? What were you actually trying to ask? Think about that, then try a different approach. I think you'll get a better response.

If you want a house, you're either going to have to build it yourself or get one from someone who built it or owns it already. Houses are not natural phenomena. They are the product of a great deal of complicated processes.

[pipi_k]

57. Just reading between the lines here....

Loans come from the banks, right?

Banks...and the people who run them...are part of the 1%, right?

So, by inference, people who take out loans to finance their despicable home buying addictions are actually aiding and abetting the 1%?

Is that what we're supposed to glean from all of this?


And the solution would naturally be for people to sell (or burn down) their homes, live in metal shipping containers or their cars, and, by doing so, screw up the miserable lives of the 1%?

I dunno.

If that's not it, then it sure would be nice to just come right out and make your point instead of forcing people to guess

:shrug:

[dkf]

13. If you want a free house we can always help you put up a shack.

[Llewlladdwr]

30. I don't think you understand either money or mortgages. NT

[originalpckelly]

35. Dear, chances are I know more than you do...

unless you are a banker or other financial industry type. But a normal person? I know you under the table.

[Llewlladdwr]

36. Then explain to me what money is. NT

[originalpckelly]

41. Money is a universal good which arises in more complicated civilizations...

which is used to deal with problems that occur in bartering, mainly the problem of a double coincidence of wants. It also acts as a way to make the exchange of more efficient by allowing people to carry a representation of a good, without actually having to cary the real good with them.

A universal good is necessary when someone has something to offer another person, but the other person doesn't have the need for it. If you exchange an intermediary, you do not have to have on hand the exact thing someone needs, just enough of the intermediary for the person to get the equivalent value of the exchanged good in the good desired by the recipient of the money.

Examples of money in history include shekels, which were bails of barley. Or cowry shells, shitty little shells which formed the money of south asian pacific islands. In fact to this day, there are still places where their currency is called cowries.

The problem that I have, is that the people who create the new money are able to set up the economy to give themselves an unchallenged form of control.

[Llewlladdwr]

48. Very good. Except that I create my own money.

We all do, everyone who participates in society, by performing a useful service or producing a useful good. That's where the value behind money comes from. The Government can always produce more physical tokens, but it can't arbitrarily produce value to support them. That's why printing more money usually leads to inflation. Your entire premise is off here, there is no secret cabal creating 'value' in a locked room somewhere.

[originalpckelly]

50. True, the value is not created...

however, the measurement of that value does indeed find its genesis with bankers. It's startling you do not know that it is banks which create the most money, that it is generally not printed (most of it is electronic values), that money is multiplied by private financial institutions every time they make loans, and that we are slaves to them, simply because they control the creation of the circulating medium.

[Llewlladdwr]

53. Again, you're confusing the tokens with the value they represent.

If I so desired I could lead a life in which I only use physical tokens and don't deal with a bank at all. I create value daily through my own actions, not the actions of a bank.

[MineralMan]

54. Oh dear...

Let's make it a lot simpler. I actually have the skills needed to build a house. I also have the funds available to buy the materials. So, I will build you a house. What will you give me in exchange for it? It doesn't have to be money, really. It just has to be something I value as much as the time and skill it will take me to build your house. Once the house is built, it has value. It is a real, tangible thing. So, what will you give me for it? You could go to work for me, building other houses, but we'll have to see if you have the skills, and you'll be working a long time to create enough value to own that house I built for you.

I like gold and gemstones. Do you have some of those? Let's have a look. If you have enough of them, you can have the house. If you don't, perhaps you can go prospecting for them. When you get a bunch, stop back by and I'll have another look.

I don't really need any other stuff that you can provide. The things I need, you can't supply, or you'd already have a house.

Money? Sure. You have some of that? Maybe we can make a deal, then. I could use money to buy the things I have a need or desire for. Now, you understand, I put a lot of time and money into your house, so it's not going to come cheap. See that house down the street? It just sold for $150,000. The one I built is pretty much equivalent to that house, so I'd sell you the house for the same amount of money, since that seems to be what houses are worth here. How does that sound?

You don't have that much? Too bad. But wait...I have a friend who has a lot of money. He sometimes loans some of it out to people like you who want a house, but can't pay for it right now. He'd loan you part of what you need. All you have to do is pay him back. There's interest on that loan of course, because he can't be sure you'll actually pay it back as you agreed, and he has to protect himself from a situation where you don't pay. Oh, yes, he'll retain an ownership interest in the house until you pay all of the money back, along with the interest. That way, if you stop paying, he'll come and take his house back. It's all quite fair, really. In the meantime, you get to move your junk into your house and live there. Pretty cool, huh?

[Hosnon]

58. And it cuts down on how many exchange rates we have to know.

Is a coffee mug worth 400 paper clips? How many pencils?

Instead of having to know the value of everything versus everything else, we just have to know the value of everything versus one thing: a dollar.

[MineralMan]

33. Surely you are not as naive as you sound in this post.

Could you build your own house? From scratch? And by from scratch I mean that you start with a bare piece of ground and nothing else. From that beginning, you have to create everything required to build your house. You don't have tools, because someone, somewhere has to make those tools. You don't have lumber, because someone, somewhere has to cut down trees and turn them into lumber. No nails, no fasteners, no nothing.

I'm betting you cannot. If you cannot, then, can you enlist the help of others to build your house for you for nothing? Can you get them to supply you with materials without any exchange? I doubt it very much.

Now, here's the thing: If you could find a small plot of ground, near a stream and a source of clay, you could, indeed, build your house from scratch. You could make your own tools by using basic stone knapping techniques, which you could probably discover on your own, if you're very creative. With those handmade tools, you could probably build a structure of some kind that you could live in. There wouldn't be any glass windows, but you could create lighted openings by scrounging for glass bottles and imbed them in the clay.

So, it is actually possible to start with nothing and build some sort of house. But, it's really hard work. And then, there's the problem of the place you build it. You could probably squat somewhere, but finding such a place with water and clay and the other things you will need might be difficult. You might have to walk many miles to explore until you found such a place that nobody cared about. I know some spots in California where you could manage it, at least for a while.

It's a lot easier, though, to exchange labor for that bartering exchange medium they call money. You work and someone gives you something you can exchange for the things you need. Why do they do that? Because they have more work than they can do to earn their own way. So, you exchange some of your time for the stuff people exchange to buy things. A house will take a lot of that work, but, again, if you want to build your own, you can save some money. The exchange medium you gain from your labor can be used to acquire tools and lumber, etc. Then, you can build your house, if you have the time. If you don't, you can get some more of that exchange medium by working some more and have someone else build it for you.

Unless you are an unusually resourceful person, you won't manage to build your own house without money. In my younger days, I could have done so, but it wouldn't have been an attractive proposition. So, I exchanged my skills and my time for that exchange medium I mentioned before and bought an old house someone wanted to sell. Worked out fine, it did.

[originalpckelly]

34. Oh joy, a long winded rant that has absolutely nothing to do with anything I'm talking about.

I'm really just asking if we have to have a power structure where a small group of people can control money without any challenge to their authority.

[Llewlladdwr]

37. You picked a really bizarre way to frame your question then. NT

[MineralMan]

40. No. It hasn't always been so. You could gather a group of people

together and form a communal organization. By pooling labor and skills, you could do whatever that group was capable of doing. People have been doing such things since humans began to walk on two feet. Tribal economies do work. You're not probably going to get such a group together, though, unless you are pretty charismatic, because such groups are difficult for form and maintain.

You could join an existing group. There are some. But, you might not like the way they operate. Who knows? It might be worth a try. Such a group, though, will have its own hierarchy and everyone will be expected to work hard to achieve goals.

I didn't write a long-winded rant. I spoke to your question. You wanted a house without money. I told you that you actually could do that, if you have the imagination and the innate knowledge to do so. I doubt that is the case, though.

There are many ways to do things. But houses are hard to come by. Every one of them takes a lot of resources to create. Somehow, you have to assemble those resources. That's the issue. Money is one of the ways. If you have some, you can use it to gather the resources you need. If not, then you have to get creative.

If I'm wrong, please show me where I'm wrong, OK?

[MineralMan]

42. I suggest, then, that you ask the question directly, rather than

disguise it in your quest for a house for no money. I answered the question you asked. If that is not the question you intended, ask more clearly.

[originalpckelly]

43. Actually, I don't think I even said what you said I said.

You just assumed that I'm a dirty commie hippie type, and not someone brainstorming ways to end the dominance of the financial system by the people who literally make money.

[MineralMan]

46. No, I did not assume that you were a dirty commie hippie type.

I assumed that you did not really know what it was you were trying to say. There's a difference.

[RevStPatrick]

39. Someone is obviously having a bad day...

...and taking it out on a bunch of other people who are probably also having a bad day!

[SoCalDem]

52. "your fucking house"

is not YOUR house until you have paid for it..in full..

If you take out a 200K MORTGAGE on it and move in, you are just "renting" it until you have made that final payment. You "miss" too many "rent" payments, and the person who LOANED you the $200K at the beginning, will take it back.

If you handed your brother/cousin.uncle/sister/kid $20K for a car, you would expect to be paid back.. If they said "hey, I can't make the payments", you would want that car asap so you could sell it to someone who would pay you for it.

[Llewlladdwr]

55. That's not entirely correct.

I own my house even though I still owe on the mortgage. I'm responsible for all taxes and upkeep, not the lender. I don't have to get my lender's approval before redecorating or getting a pet or changing the landscaping. However, I did use the house as collateral on a loan so if I default I agreed that the lender can TAKE ownership in order to recover the money I owe. Not the same as renting at all.

[SoCalDem]

68. hence the "..."

:hi:

[Yo_Mama]

61. The economy doesn't have the ability to allocate a house

without some means of exchange. Could be gold, could be silver, could be anything that is limited.

You might as well ask why businessmen can't get people to work for free!

Why do you assume that the people that bought the land and built the house (paying for all materials) should work for free?

I suppose we could all save all our lives to buy a first house when we are 60 without taking out a loan, but it would be harder in the long run - the classic rule for when it's a good idea to buy a house is when the home payment (all of it, including taxes, etc) would be cheaper than renting.

[obliviously]

62. And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon

Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

[Riftaxe]

65. Interesting stance, care to loan me $100,000

without a contract or collateral?

[GeorgeGist]

69. Well Sherlock ...

if you paid cash that wouldn't be the first case.

[Obamanaut]

70. Sounds like you are due beer and travel money, and many experiences. nt

[Norrin Radd]

71. I agree. We should have a post-scarcity society, like in Star Trek.